CITY ROOM; Dolan to Pray At Convention Of Democrats

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: August 29, 2012

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York has accepted an invitation to deliver the closing prayer at the Democratic National Convention next week, following through on a promise he made when accepting the same role at the Republican convention.

His appearance before the Democrats in Charlotte, N.C., which was announced on Tuesday by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, may lead to one of the most intriguing tableaus of this convention season.

Cardinal Dolan, an opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage who is among the Catholic bishops suing the Obama administration over its contraception health care mandate, will bless a gathering of thousands of delegates who passionately disagree with him.

He is to deliver the closing prayer at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday night, after Mitt Romney accepts the nomination as the party's presidential candidate. The cardinal had said that his appearance should not be seen as partisan and that he would accept an invitation to pray with the Democrats as well.

"It was made clear to the Democratic convention organizers, as it was to the Republicans, that the cardinal was coming solely as a pastor, only to pray, not to endorse any party, platform or candidate," Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, wrote in a statement released on Tuesday.

In recent years, Catholics have emerged as an important swing vote. Long predominantly Democratic, Catholics have increasingly shifted to the Republican Party, drawn by conservative positions on social issues.

Though a pointed critic of the Obama administration, Cardinal Dolan frequently speaks about the importance of engaging with people with whom one disagrees. On Monday, he even issued a challenge to the Democratic and Republican candidates for president and vice president, asking them to sign a pledge to behave "with civility" this election season.

That pledge, written by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal group, asks the candidates, as well as the news media, special-interest advocates and other commentators, "to employ a more civil tone in public discourse on political and social issues, focusing on policies rather than on individual personalities."

Cardinal Dolan surprised some conservatives several weeks ago when he announced that he had invited both President Obama and Mr. Romney to the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a charity event in New York in October.

He was inundated with stacks of angry mail after issuing the invitation to the president, he said; many letters from abortion opponents who wrote that he was offering a stage to someone who supported abortion rights.

In 2004, Cardinal Edward M. Egan, then archbishop of New York, declined to invite the presidential candidates to the dinner because the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kerry, a Catholic, supported abortion rights.

Two weeks ago, Cardinal Dolan wrote on his blog in response to those critics: "It's better to invite than to ignore, more effective to talk together than to yell from a distance, more productive to open a door than to shut one."

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.